


When Your Dreams Have Ended

by lapetitesinge



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-17
Updated: 2011-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-21 11:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapetitesinge/pseuds/lapetitesinge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was one thing for Harry to lose Sirius after such a short time together, but what about Remus losing him--again? There's only so much a person can handle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Your Dreams Have Ended

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble written for the prompt "remember me" at a Doomed Ships Comment Ficathon.

For some reason, he needs to go back right away. As soon as Madam Pomfrey assures him that the rest of the Order is fine, and that Tonks is in good condition at St. Mungo's, Remus heads straight for Grimmauld Place. He doesn't tell anyone where he's going, and he's sure they'll be upset later that he disappeared like that, especially after what happened, but he can't tell them. There are no words, no way to explain why he needs to be back there, alone. He needs to get away from them all; he absolutely cannot see another tear-stained face or feel another friend's embrace, not tonight. He feels he will shatter into a thousand pieces if he stays with them for one more second. It's like the feeling right before he transforms, that feeling that maybe this time,  _maybe_  he can hang on and stop it from happening just this once, right before his own mind is snatched away from him from the inside out. Except it's a thousand times worse, because there  _is_  no getting away from himself. He's afraid to let the explosion happen because this time, he doesn't think he'll ever come back together.

It's too much. To lose him once was agony, a torturous, fiery pain that he was sure would kill him, especially since he lost James, Lily and Peter all at the same time. Sirius' betrayal--or so he'd thought at the time--was as bad as if he'd died, because it seemed to invalidate everything they'd had, everything that had been good and pure between them. He didn't know how he'd survived it. He certainly spent a lot of time wishing he hadn't. And then just two years ago, he'd gotten him back: he was innocent, and he was still the same rough, rascally, loving man he'd always known, even after everything. And what was more, he had forgiven Remus for thinking him the spy; he had brushed it off in an instant as if it were nothing, just as he had accepted the truth about Remus' condition when he was eleven years old with a shrug and "yeah, I thought it was something like that." These past two years had been the best of his life, even though he'd left Hogwarts and was out of work, and even though Voldemort had returned and the war had begun again. Somehow, nothing at all could seem all that bad once they were reunited, once he was practically living at Grimmauld Place too and they spent their days either deep in plans with the Order or roaring with laughter at jokes and old memories around the kitchen table in the basement, and spent their nights in Sirius' old room, entangled in one another, Sirius' rough kisses leaving him bruised and dazed with happiness. "Imagine what my old mum would say about  _this_ ," he'd murmured, smirking as he traced Remus' collarbone with a finger, on the first night that they'd spent together in a decade. "'Stains of dishonor' indeed." Remus had tried to laugh at this, but found he could hardly catch his breath. He hardly dared to believe that it was real, that'd he gotten him back from the dead and they were here, in this place of all places, together. It had to be a dream. Sirius had had to hold him very tight to stop him shaking for those first few nights.

And now, it was done. He stands in the front hallway, next to the curtained portraits and the mounted elf heads, stock-still and listening to his own shallow, fast breaths, strangely loud in the silence. He was truly gone this time; there was no getting around it, he'd seen it happen. He'd lost him all over again, and there was nothing anyone could do. One minute he was there, alive and fighting and bright with laughter, and the next, gone, an empty space in the air. Remus was well acquainted with death and had seen people die before, and yet it seemed impossible and ghastly beyond words that  _he_ , Sirius, could be taken like that. There was just so  _much_  to him--memories and thoughts and heart and hands--that it seemed ludicrous, almost laughable that he could be snuffed out like a candle, with the merest flick of a wand.

He feels hot all over. There's a roaring in his ears and he can't think, he can't make sense of anything or produce a single thought except  _NO, NO, NO. It can't be. Not him. Not like this._  But it is; he knows it, he feels it all over--or rather, he  _doesn't_. The loss of him is an emptiness, a gaping, sucking wound in his chest that's pulling him inside out. Blindly, without realizing what he's doing, he charges up the stairs and bursts into Sirius' room, as if it's the one last place he might be hiding. But it's as dark and quiet as the rest of the house, the bed unmade, as ever, the curtains half-drawn. Remus hadn't been here for a few days, and it seems that in his absence, Sirius had finally started sorting through the appalling mess in his wardrobe and dresser drawers. Papers are scattered haphazardly on the desk and a few on the floor, and as if in a trance, Remus moves forward and looks down at the lot, recognizing old Potions essays, clippings from the Daily Prophet about his favorite Quidditch team, notes on the Order's missions. And there's a photo as well, sitting on top of an advertisement for a sale at Flourish and Blotts. He reaches for it, and sees that it's of the four of them, Sirius, James, Peter and himself, in their school days, all of them laughing with their arms around each others' shoulders. He turns it over, and sees Sirius' untidy, blunt handwriting: "MWPP, 27/6/75, end of term feast."

He remembers that day. It was their fourth year and he, Remus, had been worried about his Charms final because he'd missed the class on Disillusionment Charms and was sure it was going to come up, and Sirius had decided to cheer him up by levitating Chocolate Frogs across the room to him whenever Flitwick wasn't looking, winking roguishly at him when Remus, fighting to bite back laughter, had gestured at hm to stop. Afterwards, they'd all met at their favorite spot by the lake to celebrate being finished with their tests, and James, who had 'borrowed' the camera from a Gryffindor sixth year, had announced that he was sure that he and Sirius had achieved Os on their Transfiguration finals--it wasn't until the next year that Remus learned why the two of them looked so pleased with themselves, of course--and that they should commemorate the occasion with a photo. Remus remembers the swell of pleasure in his chest as the photo snapped, as he savored the moment and his happiness with the three of them. He looks at their young faces, at Sirius' dark eyes and his dangerous mouth, and it's like he can hear his laugh even now, and his hoarse, gentle whispers that he'd really heard in his ear just a few nights before.

He doesn't know what makes him do it. Under the circumstances, it's a bizarrely small thing to do, almost childish. In one swift movement, he crosses the room and fixes the photo to the wall with a Permanent Sticking Charm. No matter what happens, no matter if he lives a hundred more years or dies tomorrow, if the Order triumphs or Voldemort slaughters them all, he needs this part of him, of  _them_ , to stay. Someone else needs to see it and know about them, that they lived and loved and were. It's part of the house now, of Sirius' house, just as he was a part of Remus. It's like a promise, in a way--just like the photo will never leave the wall, he'll never leave Sirius. He'll never let him go again. "I'll remember," he whispers to the dark and empty room.

And then he breaks.


End file.
